Earth moving, construction and mining equipment and the like often use hydraulic oil/fluid in various mechanisms to power the function of work implements, booms, hydraulic cylinders, etc. This hydraulic oil heats up over time, necessitating that the oil be cooled. As a result, heat exchangers are routinely used in this equipment to cool the hydraulic oil.
The features and geometry employed by such heat exchangers is limited by the manufacturing techniques available to make the heat exchangers. The technologies typically used include extrusion, forming or bending, welding and brazing. High efficiency heat exchangers usually have tiny or intricate features that are repeated a great number of times. These tiny or intricate features may be delicate and may be difficult to form. Consequently, these features are usually limited to extrusions of two dimensional shapes (e.g. straight fins or tubes). Furthermore, these features are joined typically using brazing or welding that creates a seam or joint in the heat exchanger. This may create an area of high stress due to abrupt geometry changes, as well as potential leak points due to poor quality of the seams or joints.